You may come across plenty of situations in your daily life that increases your blood pressure. It can be getting stuck in traffic, dealing with a nagging child, or a difficult boss, and many more. Sometimes you need to show a little anger to get things done in the right way. But when it goes beyond a healthy level, then it becomes a concern.
Anger is a healthy and normal emotion when dealt in a positive manner. If it gets uncontrolled, it can destroy your health, career, and relationships. This makes it very important to learn to manage it. Here, in this article, we will tell you simple and effective tips to calm your mind, and tame your temper.
What is Anger?
Anger is a distorted form of love. It is a feeling that arises when something we love the most doesn’t happen. Like love, nobody has taught us how to feel and express anger. We have all felt this emotion since the time when we were a child. The commonest example being when a child yells and fights when someone snatches his toy.
As we grow old, we become mature, and learn ways to handle it in a responsible manner. Everyone is born different, some are gifted with natural self-control, some have to cultivate it. Some are very patient, and very much resistant to anger, while others lose their mental stability and peace at the drop of the hat.
Signs of Anger
Feeling anger is natural and sometimes important to show others to stay in their limits, and does not take us for granted. It is also necessary for a parent to show a little anger to the child so that he stays obedient, and disciplined. When anger is used in positive manner, and in a healthy way it proves to be beneficial. However, without self-control, the same anger can become destructive in nature.
Here are a few signs that tells you that you need to manage your anger.
- Lack of control of your own emotions
- You feel regretful after expressing anger
- You engage or get feelings about physical violence
- You often have arguments with others
- You are impatient and impulsive by nature
- People find you irritating, or short-tempered person
If you can relate to a few of the above signs, then you definitely need to learn to manage your anger. Such people also experience a few physical symptoms in the form of high blood pressure, sleep issues, heart ailments, increased use of substance, headaches, sluggish digestive system.
What Is The Need To Manage Anger?
Anger, in its initial stage feels like a mild irritation. This feeling when passes the tolerance level of a person takes the form of an intense rage. Anger is not all bad. It can be positive too. One of the examples of positive anger is when it is used in constructive purposes like to stand for a social cause.
Despite of being positive, its level needs to be controlled. When it is left unchecked, then these feelings contribute to an aggressive behavior, such as self-harm, or damaging others by way of criticism in public, spreading false rumors with an intention of defamation, threaten, emotional and physical abuse, and even violence. Too much of anger brings bad reputation in the society and cause significant harm your health. If this situation persists for a longer time, then it can lead to life-threatening ailments such as heart attack, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure etc.
So, we have seen that excess anger does no good to the person. But when the person lacks self-control, and emotional-control, he unknowingly burst into anger and causes disaster for everyone. This happens because the person lacks self-awareness, and he is driven only by his emotions.
He loses his ability to make a distinction between right and wrong. When such an intense expression of rage, in unhealthy ways occur quite often, then it can take a toll on the physical, emotional and social life of a person.
People who are short-tempered and lack emotional control, and awareness are in dire need to learn ways to manage their Anger. So, here we are, with a complete list of beneficial anger management strategies to overcome this issue and express your feelings in healthy ways.
Ways to Manage Anger In A Healthy Way
Before we learn the skills to control anger, let us get an idea of what Anger management is. It is not that we should never feel angry. When we are living in this challenging life, we should accept the bouts of anger, but be wise enough to deal in a way that it does not harm oneself and others. Reaction to anger brings misery, and regret. By being mindful and taking constructive action will help you stay productive, and positive.
There is no one strategy to deal with anger. You need to employ different strategies under different situations. You can’t win every time by an argument. In some cases, you need to express your emotions assertively and not aggressively. When it comes to personal relations, you may need to calm your emotions, or even suppress them.
Direct your thoughts towards finding a positive resolution to a problem. This determination to stay calm in spite of the heat of the atmosphere and pay no heed to negativity, makes you so strong and unshakeable from inside. This is the true strength. Such emotional control and stability promotes overall health and wellness in the person.
1. Identify the Triggers
Some people get angry when faced with specific types of conditions. It could be waiting for the traffic to clear, coming across snarky comments, when the food cooked is not up to the mark, disrespectful behavior, when your subordinates make the same mistakes again, when you don’t get the machine to workout at the gym, etc.
All these situations can easily shorten your fuse. Once you identify these triggers, you need to work out ways to avoid lashing out and deal with the situation in a calm and collected way.
2. Pay attention to your body
When you come across any trigger, you need to become aware of your body. Watch for signs such as shaking of hands, sweaty palms, racing heart, shortened breaths, head becoming hot etc. When you feel these types of activities in your body, that is when you need to realize to calm down. Observe your sensation, take long deep breaths and relax. Do this for a few seconds and you will find the intensity of your emotions will diminish.
3. Always Think before you Act
Anger can make you do things that you would regret later on. Do not go only by your emotions. In the heat of anger, you can say or do several things that can hurt other person’s feelings. So, it is important to take a few seconds to think before you act.
4. Be Solution-Focused
Once you have calmed your body, you now need to act with healthy, and productive way to deal with this situation. Choose to state your opinions in an assertive manner. Do not aim to hurt others. You should only focus on putting across your view points in a direct way.
5. Stick with only ‘I’ statements
In anger, most of the time we use more of “You” statements to held the other person responsible for making us angry. It is essential to avoid blame and criticism as it will only make the situation worse. It is advised to use “I” statements to explain the situation.
A person needs to be precise, and respectful. In place of saying “You do not help me”, you can say, “I am upset that you did not offer me help while doing my homework”. The latter statement explains the situation without criticism.
6. Use Humor to ease the situation
Another thing that will help you calm anger is to have a little humor. Some people have this ability to add humor to diffuse tension, and save yourself from causing hurt and regret. This technique can be used anywhere to lighten the mood and restore peace in relationships.
7. Do not hold on to bitterness
Holding on to a grudge harm you. It is not going to reduce the anger. The person who you dislike, occupies a rental space in your mind. You have no freedom from him/her. Whenever he will show up, you will start to get the same anger feelings. There is no end to it. You will lose your energy, mood, and health by holding onto a grudge against that person.
The best antidote to grudge is “Forgiveness”. It is a powerful tool. When you forgive someone, you will notice lightness in your heart. It can even happen, that both of you realize your mistakes and learn from them. Forgiveness brings peace, and boost your relationship. Where anger releases tied up feelings and emotions in a destructive way, forgiveness does it in a constructive way. It is more focused on acceptance of each other faults, and maintain peace within ourselves, and in relationship.
8. Find a source to vent out your feelings
Sometimes, it becomes very hard to contain the feelings within ourselves. We can’t get a clarity of the situation. We feel people wronged us and took advantage of us. If you feel helpless and can’t find a way to deal with it constructively, then in place of complaining and grumbling to the other person, find a friend who you can trust and share your feelings. When you express your feelings with the friend, you will feel light from within, and work out a solution or lessen your anger.
9. Get Into Some Activity
One of the best ways to cope up with anger is to get involved in some physical activity. In Anger, you will notice restlessness, and a surge of energy to go out to the person and vent it out. This can have dangerous consequences such as an end to a lifelong relationship etc. The best solution is to become calm at that moment and get into some activity.
Take time to assess the situation and find out how it can be solved positively without causing any hurt, and regrets. The best way to do it is by hitting the Gym. If you do not have a gym membership, then there are several other ways to burn the destructive energy such as go for a brisk walk, do power yoga, skipping, jogging, etc.
You will find relaxed and in control of yourself. This is the right time to analyze the situation and think about it in a productive way. Regular exercise reduces stress, and increases your tolerance towards frustration. Try it and you will see results.
10. Plan an Outing
Stress is one of the reasons for anger. Sometimes, we are so much packed in our daily schedule that we can’t make time for ourselves. Our whole day is passed in fulfilling job, and home roles. You need short breaks to recharge your batteries.
Time outs is not for only kids, it is for adults too. So, every year plan at least one or two vacations to relax and get in touch with your own self. Spend quality time with family members. Vacations play an important role in anger management plan.
11. Prepare your own Calm Down Strategy
Every person is unique, and so are their ways of dealing with stress. Hence ways of anger management can be different for everyone. Create your own calming down strategy to relax yourself. Find out the things that pacifies you and changes your present emotional state.
It can be a painting or photograph that you like to see, any dish that you want to eat, any music that you would like to hear, any perfume you wish to smell, or any spiritual audio, or video that can make you calm.
Get a phone and store calming music such as guided meditation, spiritual discourses, slow rhythmic breathing exercises etc. in it. Whenever, you feel stressed, you can listen to them to ease your stress levels.
12. Getting Professional Assistance
If you face extreme anger issues, that can’t be controlled by the above tips, then it is advised to seek assistance of a professional. In cases, when a person has mental health issues, he needs professional assistance to manage their anger.
PTSD is one of the conditions where in a person is associated with aggressive outbursts. Depressive disorders can lead to irritation and make it tougher to manage. It is also required that you uncover any existing mental health issues that can hamper the ability to manage it.
You need to approach a physician and discuss with him about your behavior, mental and emotional state at that time. Your physician will help in finding out the underlying issues, such as physical health like high blood pressure, past emotional trauma, and other issues that is contributing to this problem.
On the basis of the findings, if he finds that you are in need of mental health assistance, then you may be prescribed therapy and anger management sessions to solve the issue from the root level.
Conclusion
We all have experienced anger at some point in our life. As a little bit of salt is required in food, similarly, a little bit of anger is required in life. However, when it goes beyond healthy levels, then it creates a disaster. Before this happens to you, it is very important to learn and implement these effective anger management tips to stay in charge of yourself.
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